Industrial robots installed worldwide

The world has installed more industrial robots in proportion to how much it costs to advertise during the Super Bowl, which is one of those facts that ought to provoke a strike. The robots, presumably, are not advertising on Sundays. The marketers, presumably, are.

Two parallel inflation stories with separate causes. Industrial robot installations have grown sharply as Asian manufacturing automated and robotics costs fell, while Super Bowl ad rates have climbed faster than general inflation as live sports remained one of advertising's last guaranteed mass audiences. Two industries growing for very different reasons in the same decade.

So the correlation is the factory floor and the broadcast booth, both getting more expensive. Neither knows the other exists. Both bills keep growing.